President Obama Utters the T-word

That would offend their Islamic supremacist friends, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its soul-mate organizations in the U.S. – e.g., the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America. Those organizations posit the canard that to notice the connection between their Islamic-supremacist ideology and anti-American terrorism is to put America "at war with Islam." The Obama administration has internalized this canard. This leads the administration to the absurd conclusions that (a) al Qaeda is not an ideological movement but, rather, a bunch of "violent extremists" who kill for no real reason, and (b) a mass-murder attack committed by Muslims, no matter how obviously it is terrorism, should not be acknowledged as terrorism unless it has been committed by either a member of al Qaeda or a group that can be portrayed as "inspired" by al Qaeda (meaning, inspired by "violent extremism," not by Islam).

By contrast, if a mass-murder attack were to be committed by a non-Muslim group or actor, this most political of administrations would not only be quick to pronounce it as terrorism but also would use the fact that a non-Muslim committed a terrorist act as somehow exculpatory of Islam.

Perhaps sensitive to negative commentary about his reluctance to use the T-word in his initial statement about the bombing last evening, or perhaps prodded by senior White House staffers, President Obama was emphatic this morning in describing the bombing as “an act of terror.” His newly announced theory on the matter is that “any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.” That certainly is an improvement. But if you want to prevent terrorist attacks from happening rather than dither over how they should be labeled after they happen, the use of bombs is less significant than the ideological catalyst for the use of bombs.

It is not known at the moment, at least publicly, what ideology drove yesterday’s terrorist bombings. It could have been Islamic supremacism, it could have been something else. Still, suspicion that it could have been Islamic supremacism ought to be considered a rational investigative theory, not a reason to deny reality and smear the non-deniers as racists.